joann2 the Imp
joann2.org

March 23, 2005

For the record (just in case): If I am ever in a persistent/permanent vegetative state or am similarly incapacitated, please pull the feeding tube. Don't agonize. Don't worry. Just do it. And, no matter what else, keep the blasted press away from it all.

March 10, 2005

From today's Campus Watch crime report:

Criminal Trespass / Evading (Peter T. Flawn Academic Center, #2 West Mall)
A UT guard observed a non-UT subject in the basement of the building. The guard knew the subject had previously been issued a written criminal trespass warning. A police officer was summoned to the area. As the police officer approached the non-UT subject, the subject pushed a chair "into the path" of the police officer and fled on foot. The subject was pursued to the 2300 block of Guadalupe Street where the subject sought refuge by climbing to the roof of a business. The subject was apprehended at that location. Occurred on 3-10-05 at 4:29 AM.

I always laugh when I see someone on TV running away from another person and they start running up stairs or climbing up a fire escape or whatever. It seems so preposterous that the person being pursued thinks an escape upward is somehow possible. Are they expecting a passing helicopter to drop a rope ladder down to them? I understand if you're running from a dog or something, that jumping up on something or climbing a tree or some such might work. You can either wait until help comes or the dog gets distracted. But, if you're running from another person, all they have to do is wait for you to come back down. But, it looks like those TV shows aren't so far-fetched after all. Here's evidence that people really are just exactly that dumb. Wow.

March 9, 2005

So, Jennie says it's been brought to her attention that I don't write about her enough 'round these parts. Hmmm... 'Seems to me if you wanna know more about my sister, you should encourage her to have her own web page. But, in the spirit of helping a sister out, I present the latest photos of her silly dogs:

[Jennie's doggies]

Are those goofy looking animals or what? Yikes!

March 5, 2005

I've been thinking about Bruce a lot this past week. It's hard to get away from it. The worst time for me seems to be when I'm driving around in my car. That's when I listen to music the most. I have it on all day in my office but I can't really listen to it much...what with working and all. So, when I'm driving around, I tend to hear the songs and pay more attention to them. And, all week long, just about any good song made me think of Bruce. It's so very sad.

I went looking around the web and found last year's XLent cover story about house concerts. The featured concerts in the article were, naturally, Rouse House concerts. Sara Hickman talks about Bruce on her weblog here and here. She says that his funeral "was the most moving, and joy filled, funeral service" she'd ever attended. Agreed. It's clear that Bruce was very dear to a whole bunch of people.

Looking around some more, I found a couple more links of interest...

February 28, 2005

When it rains, it pours. That's what they say, right? In case you don't read my baseball page, I thought I'd post here that there was another very sad bit of news yesterday. As I was waiting for the baseball game to start, I got a call on my cell phone. The news was that Bruce Rouse had died on Saturday afternoon. He was such a great guy. Liz is such a great gal. I don't know how she'll possibly cope. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made, in Bruce's memory, to the SIMS Foundation. That seems very fitting.

By the by...I've got my iPod spinning my "Rouse House" mix today. It consists of songs by artists that I heard at a Rouse House concert. What a great bunch of music. David Olney just finished and now it's Karen Mal.

Update. More info available at: http://www.pe.utexas.edu/~brouse/.

February 22, 2005

Sorry I haven't posted much 'round here lately. I've been spending most of my posting time over at my Longhorn Baseball page. So, check it out if you've got any interest.

'Got some very sad news yesterday. A truly special lady, author Barbara Burnett Smith, died over the weekend. She'd driven down to San Antonio to rescue a dog. The dog jumped out of the car at some point and Barbara ran after him. She was struck by a passing vehicle and passed away the following evening. I met Barbara a couple of times and was struck by what a bubbly personality she had. In an odd "small world" kind of thing, her brother is married to one of my cousins. I've never met him. It's been years since I've seen my cousin. But, they're in town now making arrangements and what not so I'll be seeing them both soon. My heart goes out to Barbara's family and friends. Barbara's got a web page you can visit: Purple Sage, Texas. It's about the fictional town of Purple Sage, where Barbara's first series of books were set.

February 1, 2005

I witnessed a car accident on my way home this evening. I'm writing this down while the details are fresh in case someone needs the documentation for court or their insurance company. It was a bit before 10 o'clock. I was stopped in the west-bound turn lane on Braker getting ready to turn south on Lamar. I was the second car in line. There were two silver-colored cars stopped in the right-hand lane. The middle lane was empty. The light had been red for quite some time (at least 30 seconds...probably longer than that). It had been raining most of the day and the road was quite wet. Suddenly, I heard a car's tires skidding on the road to my right. The car (a green or turquoise Neon) was in the middle lane and skidded to the right, glancing off the second car stopped at the light and then hitting the first car pretty hard. It looked like the driver of the Neon didn't notice the red light in time. He was probably driving about 35 or 40 miles an hour and when he hit the breaks, he just couldn't keep control of the car since the road was so wet. Within a couple of seconds of stopping, the driver of the Neon pulled around the first car and started to pull onto north-bound Lamar almost hitting another car that was turning north onto Lamar from east-bound Braker. Frankly, I thought the driver of the Neon was going to make a run for it. So, I quickly called 911. It turns out, the driver just pulled onto the shoulder on north-bound Lamar. My turn light was green so I went ahead and turned onto south-bound Lamar as I talked to the 911-dispatcher. I told the dispatcher where the accident had occurred, that I didn't think anyone was hurt, and that the cars seemed to be out of the way.

I turned around in a nearby parking lot and headed back to the scene of the accident so I could give the involved drivers my contact information. When I got there, it turned out there had been three young men in the Neon and they were all pretty nervous, cold (it was 42 degrees F outside and two of them were wearing shorts), and in a bit of a panic. They were all pretty young...about 20 years old, maybe a bit younger. They were all out of the car and I didn't see who had been driving. The woman in the frontmost car was quite upset and couldn't understand how they could've hit her since the light had been red so long. She didn't think they'd tried to stop at all. I assured her that they did try to stop and told them all that I had already called 911. It was at this point that I found out the second car back from the light had also been hit. Until that point, I'd thought the driver was just staying nearby since she'd witnessed the accident. It turns out the Neon didn't belong to any of the young men...it apparently belonged to the sister of one. His name might be Steven...I'm not sure that's his name but I'm going to use it from now on. None of the young men had a cell phone. Steven asked to borrow a phone. I offered him mine since he was clearly agitated. He tried calling his sister to find out if the car was insured. He said he hadn't been driving the car because he didn't have his license with him. His friend who had been driving made a comment along the lines of: "I don't know why that woman pulled her car in front of me like that!" I told him he was mistaken...that the woman was at a red light and had been stopped for quite some time before he hit her. His comment made me think that he'd been distracted and didn't notice the red light. There really is no other good explanation for his going into a skid the way he did. Steven could not get ahold of his sister so called her boyfriend...looking for her. He was very clearly upset and had no idea what he should do. A police car showed up about 5 minutes after I'd hung up with the dispatcher. At that point, the women from the silver cars were pulling their cars into the Albertson's parking lot. And, the driver of the Neon had apparently left his friends high and dry. Steven couldn't believe his friend had just walked away. He was shaking a lot...I think more from shock and worry than the cold. The policeman asked if he could move the car. He just kept talking on my cell phone...telling his sister's boyfriend what had happened and asking what he should do. I finally got my phone back from him and went to my car to get my jacket and write down my contact info for the two women. Two more police cars had shown up by the this time. By the way, there were no passengers in the two cars that had been hit. When I got back to the group, the driver of the Neon had reappeared. I guess he'd gone to the Albertson's to make a call or something. Steven was sitting in the Neon...still agonizing over his sister's damaged car. I gave my contact info to the woman in the car that suffered the most damage (the front car) and to one of the policemen. I also told him what had happened and came on home.

Whew. I think that about covers it. I hope I don't end up having to testify but do think I'm the only one who really had any sort of idea what actually happened.

Why'd I come up with the name "Steven"? As I was pulling into my garage, my cell phone rang and a woman asked if I'd just called. I said I hadn't but had been a witness to a car accident and that one of the people involved had used my phone. She asked if it had been a green car and I said yes. She asked if it was "Steven" who'd used my phone. I said I didn't know his name...that I'd just let him use my phone. I also told her nobody appeared to be hurt, told her the location of the accident, and that, sadly, it looked like her car had been damaged pretty badly. But, that I really didn't know more. She thanked me for the info and we rang off.

January 31, 2005

'Been busy busy busy! Same old story, eh? Kathryn came and went...we had a very good visit, I do believe. I got sick as a dog (or some such) over the holidays. But am much improved now...thankfully, in plenty of time for my trip to the City of Angels. In recent news, I had a great time this weekend. 'Went to the George Strait concert at the Erwin Center on Friday night. Much fun was had by all. The opening acts (Dierks Bentley and Amber Dotson) were very good. I knew nothing of Amber beforehand (it seems few people do...the web page I linked to is basically just a place-holder at the moment) and had only heard one of Dierks' songs. 'Guess that just goes to show, yet again, that I'm becoming and old fogey. I know nothing 'bout the youngsters these days. Heh.

On Saturday, we had the Alumni game. Brrrrrr. It was cold. The scoreboard kept reporting that it was 50 degrees out but it felt colder than that. That Disch-Falk field sure can feel cold when the wind starts whipping around all that concrete and aluminum. Which serves as notice that I've started updating my baseball page again. Check it out. I posted a game report and even included photos. Hook 'em!

December 28, 2004

Amazon.com is making it easy to donate to the Red Cross to help with the tsunami disaster relief efforts. Amazon is waiving its usual fee so 100% of the donation goes to the Red Cross.

December 7, 2004

My "activist" past comes back to haunt me. I think it's a pretty good article. And, for the most part, what I said is accurately reflected in the article. Talking to the reporter brought back a lot of memories. It's amazing how quickly time flies. It seems like the last time I attended one of those post-midnight meetings was only a few months ago. But, it's been more like two or three years.

Jonathan (the reporter) asked why the meetings stopped...why the push for public accountability stopped. And, frankly, I don't know. In my case, I just got tired of the whole thing. I joined the University Staff Association whenever it started up...1996 or 1997? I worked on the president's ad-hoc committee on staff compensation for at least two years. I worked on the Staff Council for about 3 years. And, I attended all but two or three of those post-midnight meetings with the custodians. Those went on for two years or so, first weekly, then every couple of weeks, then once a month. Until none of us had the energy to keep at it. It's a shame. But, I guess that's how life goes, eh?

One thing I really wish is that I'd kept better records of our meetings. I kept sporadic records and I actually ended up getting rid of most of my hand-written notes about six months ago. Ah well...

joanna@joanna.org
URL: http://www.joanna.org/archive/Dec2004-Mar2005.html
Last updated: March 23, 2005